


All there ever is, or ever was, or ever will be

by TetsuwanPenguin



Category: Tetsuwan Atom | Astro Boy
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:57:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetsuwanPenguin/pseuds/TetsuwanPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the far distant future as the universe is dying out, Astro and his siblings are reincarnated as human beings on a world orbiting a red dwarf star where a group of 'witches' seek out God's final command to help re-create the cosmos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All there ever is, or ever was, or ever will be

****

****

Zero.

**Cobalt** sat in the back of the MIT lecture hall absorbing the professor's lesson. As a robot he was the ideal learning machine having perfect concentration and total recall of everything he ever heard or saw. He knew that many of the human students felt uncomfortable around him, so he tended to sit in the back of the classrooms where they wouldn't have to notice him. The class on Cosmology and Astronomy was particularly interesting to him since it dealt with the forces of the universe that most paralleled religion and mysticism, the two things that humans were so often attracted to, something he could never quite understand.

'Most red dwarf stars were born in the earliest moments of the universe. They are of a class of stars barely possessing barely enough hydrogen fuel to ignite the nuclear fires of thermonuclear fusion. They are a miserly lot, hording their precious fuel by barely generating much light and heat. They were still babies when the larger giants surrounding them blew themselves apart in tremendous supernova blasts which seeded the universe with heavy metals. They would then pass though the clouds of this debris picking up some of these elements, adding new lines to their spectra.  
As new populations of stars were born the first galaxies formed. Second and third generations of new suns erupted into existence as the vast clouds of interstellar gas enriched by the heavy elements created in the death knells of the early giants condensed into systems of stars and planets. Now some 13 billion years after the big bang life came into existence on these new worlds. On at least one such world intelligent and self aware life forms sprung into being. These creatures pondered their own existence and wondered if they were alone in the vastness of the universe. Our civilization created machines in their own images, machines that could think and be aware of their own existence. Some of these machines would out live their creators. (Interesting speculation on the professor's part, Cobalt thought).  
The universe will grow old, as everything must. All of the mainstream stars will burn out, and all of the interstellar hydrogen will either be used up in star formation, or will thin out by the ever constant expansion of space-time itself. No new stars or planets will then be created and the universe will slowly grow dark as the distance between stars increases towards infinity.  
Then only the dwarf stars will remain. One trillion years into the future, they will have not even reached middle age. They will wander the universe in the space between the where the galaxies once stood. Torn from their systems when their suns had died, rogue planets will be drifting in interstellar space. Frozen balls of rock, their atmospheres clinging to their surfaces as frozen vapor, these bodies will carry with them memories of a brighter time. On some of these rocky bodies life will have once risen and have died out. Perhaps two such rogue planets will capture each other, one a massive giant, the other an Earth like body. They will now be orbiting each other around a common center of gravity, dancing in a tight spin as they drift though the dark cosmos.  
Fate, and enough time may allow the two bodies to enter the sphere of influence of a dwarf star. The small sun will have expanded somewhat as it aged, as all main sequence stars eventually do. Now nearly twice as bright as when it had first been born, the dwarf star might accept the two rouge bodies as its own. Orbiting within the dwarf's 'life zone' where enough radiant heat may be collected to keep water molecules in a liquid state, the smaller body will begin to defrost. Its atmosphere will out gas from the frozen surface, and its oceans will craw up from the depths of its mantle. The dead world will begin to come to life again. It may take millions of years, but what had once happened before can happen again anew.'

While to some of the students, the professors story sounded like a fairy tale, to Cobalt it seemed a likely prediction of how the universe would grow old and fade away. The idea of a swan song where a final surge of life was reborn seemed like a wishful thought, but somehow Cobalt liked it.  
Of course there were other theories, things that he had already read in the later chapters of the text book. Perhaps the professor would cover some of them in his next lecture. Cobalt wondered about the mysteries of dark mater and dark energy and how the very fabric of the universe might someday expand so rapidly that it would actually rip itself apart, all mater disintegrating into a thin cold cosmic soup. Ah, but that would be hundreds of billions of years in the future, long after he'd have been rusted away and forgotten, or so he thought.

 

****

One.

  
**The** lady Rebeca looked down from her bedroom window from the southern tower of the ancient castle. The morning's first light appeared in her window before it reached the village due to the elevation of her vantage point. She had a commanding view of the countryside below her from her window. In the distance were the forest covered mountains and the grassy valley at their feet. The mountains caught the moisture laden wind that drifted from the sea hundreds of miles away to the north. This wet wind would swirl about over the top of the tree covered horizon forming dark rain clouds that would dump the moisture which would pour down into streams running down hill into the grassy valley. From streams, into brooks, the water eventually emptied into the river which divided the known country from the distant lands beyond. Few had crossed the river and gone very far, fewer still had traveled down its length, for they knew that there was nothing good to be found beyond their borders, and that the lands beyond were taboo.  
At the foot of the valley was the Village Town where all commerce took place and where all of the merchants plied their trades. The land surround the valley was farmed, the river itself was fished. Between the crops the farmers grew, the animals and fowl raised for their meat and the milk and eggs from the cows, goats, chickens and ducks; enough substance existed to feed the population of the country, but just barely.  
For as long as the Lady Rebeca could remember, the valley and the surrounding farmlands, and the Village Town were all that there was. The population remained fairly constant, with the birth rate being about equal to the passing of the elders.

Far in the distance, connected to the Village Town by an ancient road, it was written in the ancient texts that there had once been other settlements known to the people. Contact with them had been lost years during a great upheaval that was recorded in those sacred documents. 

The population was divided into several orders. The farmers lived in small huts in their fields. They spent their lives tending crops of grains and vegetables and they produced the food stocks that the people depended on. Cotton and flax were grown to provide fibers for weaving cloths. Sheep and goats provided milk, meat, and wool.  
Fishermen worked on the river with their nets to catch trout, and other fish. They were the boatmen, and traveled up and down the river as far as the boundaries of the known country. Goods traveled on the river faster than over the land.  
At the edge of the valley, in the foot hills of the mountains, the miners dug into the Earth in search of their treasures. Coal, and metal ores were extracted from deep below the surface. These fed the foundries where goods of iron, copper, and silver were created. Shoes for the horses, gates for the houses, and table wares were hammered out of elements of the earth by the village Smiths.  
Nearby, the lumber men felled trees and sawmills cut the lumber. Fire wood for the furnaces, and lumber for building houses and furniture were produced. The foresters minded the trees and the lumber jacks only selected only enough trees for harvest to meet the needs of the population. They pruned the forest carefully, leaving it healthy for new growth.

In the Village Town artisans crafted goods in their shops, and merchants manned their shops.  
Then there was the order of the Matriarchal Clergy to which Rebeca belonged. They were the elite that kept the civilization in check. They were an old order, so old that few knew how they had come into being. All of the priestly order were women. They were sometimes called 'Witches' because it was said that they worked dark magic. In fact, the order had long practiced honing their mental abilities through the use of drugs extracted from the holy Teska trees, and hours of meditation. The priests claimed that they could see into the future, and look into the past. They held onto their power by controlling the menfolk though sexual prowess, it was said that they could control their own reproductive systems so as to select which sperm from which of their mates they would allow to fertilize their eggs. Thus they controlled the future of their own order.

The castle stood just outside the town, visible from anywhere in the valley. It was built on the highest ground in the valley, upon the the foothills in the otherwise flat countryside. It was said that the Witches had caused the land to rise up with their magic so that they could build their castle high in the air to have dominion over the region. No one knew how long the structure had been there. The huge granite blocks that had been mortared together to create it must have been carried a long distance, as there were no known quarries containing the green stone anywhere near the valley. The large blocks had been cut with such precision, and were fit together so perfectly that it seemed impossible such a monument could even be constructed, as no artisan in the village had the skills to do such mason work.

It was in the castle that the clergy women lived. It was from here that they ruled over the valley. It was from here that they demanded tribute from the citizens of the valley. And it was from here that they pondered the fate of the universe, for they believed that they were the guardians of eternity. At night they would study the night sky while meditating in prayer. There were few stars visible as only the dim dwarfs were left. Even with optical aid only a few dozen points of light could be seen in the sky, but the patterns they made were noted and the order believed the movements of the few remaining stars carried messages from God.

The elder Mother appeared in Rebeca's room. Rebeca never heard her coming or going, the leader of the priests could project an aura that shielded her from visibility when she desired it. Few of the priests actually knew how old their leader was, she had ascended to power as the head of the order before most of them had been born, and she hid her true age very well. Elder Mother was nearing the end of her lifespan and the priests all knew that one of them would soon ascend to take her place. The new Elder Mother had already been chosen by the current one, and the one of them that would go through the ordeal to take her place already knew who she was, but kept this secret to herself, as required by their faith.

“Did you see the apparition in the valley this morning?” the elder Mother asked.

“Again?” Rebeca quired.

“Yes,” She said, “The second time this month.”

“I suppose we will once again have newcomers in our midst” Rebeca replied.

It had started during the end of the last harvest season. A strange glow was seen in the upper valley not far from where the largest stream came down from the mountains. It appeared as a pinkish green glow two hours before sunrise, just as the fire flies were departing for the night. Each time the glow in the valley had appeared, several strangers would show up in the village. They would sometimes have no knowledge of who they were, or how they had arrived. They would tell stories of having died in a far off land and of waking up in the soft clover grass in the upper valley. It was as if they had been reincarnated from a previous existence and been placed in the upper valley above the Village Town. Doctor White, the village's only physician was one such newcomer who had walked down into the Village Town from the meadow in the upper valley.

“How many more mouths can we feed?” Rebeca asked.

“So far the newcomers have been bringing valuable skills with them.” The elder Mother answered. “The farmers have been producing bumper crops, and the river men have netted large catches of bass and trout. No one will go hungry this season.”

“I will go down to the village and keep an eye out for them.” She replied.

“You are still hoping that you may yet find the 'One',” the elder Mother asked.

“The prophesy says that a stranger will come who can pass the test of the Teska and survive ” Rebeca replied. “We are now reading in the stars that the end time is near and that a seed must be prepared to ensure that the universe regenerates, and for that the next Elder Mother must find a suitable mate.”

“I know well what the prophesy says, child.” The elder Mother barked back. “Twice before you have put someone up to the test, and twice before the unfortunate subject paid the price of not being the 'One' with his life.”

“I know that only too well.” Rebeca said. “I also know that the stars are getting dim, we don't have much time left. When God's time is up and the Universe fades away it is our destiny to to regenerate creation.”

“Don't worry child. God will provide.” Elder Mother said. “He will send us the One when the time comes.”

 

****

Two.

**Dreams** that had been frozen in time for hundreds of billions of years suddenly picked up where they had left off. Four of them in total, for there were four minds suddenly called back into existence. They had been frozen in place at the exact point where their life's energy had run down to zero, frozen in the vacuum of the near absolute zero of outer space.

**Atom** had succumb to infinity lying against a frozen rock on a comet in a hyperbolic orbit leaving the yellow dwarf G class star for the first and last time. The last thing his eyes saw was the Earth slowly growing smaller as the comet headed into deep space. Even after all of his systems had shut down, his electronic brain still functioned on low power, its clocks cycling at mere kilohertz instead of their normal terahertz, with the effect that his dreams now ran at a snails pace. It took him months to run though events that had taken hours, as he dreamed of pleasurable thoughts. He saw his wife and children again in his mind, childhood friends Tamao and Kenichi, his brothers Kobaruto and Titan, and sister Uran. The last thing he visioned in his minds eye were Tenma and Ochanomizu-Hakase, his two fathers.  
Uran and Titan (Chitan) expired in each others arms in the frozen interior of the Venusian spacecraft. After rediscovering each other they soon realized that they were more to each other than brother and sister, for they were not actually created as siblings, but were truly unique individuals that complemented each other. Together they were whole, apart they were wanting. As their lives flashed back in their minds, their electronic brains cycling down to a snails pace to conserve their exhausted power, bits and pieces of their lives replayed before their blind eyes.

**Uran** looked up into Pluto's face and smiled. She wasn't afraid of the giant robot who had been sent to destroy her brother in single combat. Instead she had dressed up to look like Atom, wearing a pair of his black pants with the wide green waist band. She insisted that she was Atom, but the horned robot saw though this and demanded she reveal her brothers location. When she refused, she found herself stuffed into the giant robots chest, behind a locked panel.  
The scene shifted and Uran remembered the time she had been split into two for her desire to compete in the roboting matches. Always the fearless tomboy, she had almost the same horsepower as her brother and wasn't ashamed to use it. The duplication of herself into two pieces left each part with less than half the power of the whole and she found herself outmatched in the ring and about to be destroyed when Atom showed up at the last minute.  
As her power faded she saw the face of little Mars, the robot that had been created as an almost clone of Atom. Mars had been a little brat, who had a crush on Uran, and though she wouldn't admit it, she had one on him as well. Mars had been her first love, and after their all too brief marriage the little bot, now a grown up as she, had been killed by a stampede of wild elephants during their honeymoon in Africa on a mission to protect endangered species. The very last sight that lay frozen in her image processor was that of Chitan.

**Titan** had been born with the name Chitan, which is what Uran had always called him, despite his changing the spelling when he had joined NASA. Unlike human children, Titan had total recall of his infant years, and fondly remembered how he could literally knock down walls with his cries. He remembered all too well the time he'd been kidnapped by robot thieves, and how he'd sent them running with his yelling that leveled an entire city block. There was the period of many years where he had been lost on a mission testing the very first transluminal spacecraft from earth. Upon his return to civilization on Mars he'd spent some time in the hospital, where he caused some trouble. First there had been his yell upon awaking that destroyed several rooms on the recovery wing of the hospital. And then there had been his reaction to a bowl of chili which had topped the Richter scale for flatulence. As his power reached zero, his sightless eyes last saw the face of Uran.

**Kobaruto** was the last of the four to expire. He spent his final years on Mars watching as the planet turned green from the terraforming operation. After Ketchup junior had died, Cobalt found himself all alone, and he became less diligent on his own self maintenance. His final requests were to be buried in deep space, hoping that he might some day be rejoined with his siblings. Since he had been shut down instead of slowing failing his memories had stopped at a point of his own choosing. Somehow the last thing he recalled was his crash landing on top of Dr. Tenma's brand new automobile as he fell out of a tree trying to rescue a kitten. He had been the co-creation of the human boy Tobio, whose death in a traffic accident would be the seminal event that drove his poor father mad, thus setting the scene for Atoms creation.

 

**In** the high valley, just below the mountain forests, a mist began to rise from the ground forming a semi spherical bubble. It was still dark, the mornings first light had not yet began to appear in the east, the sun still lay far enough below the horizon that its light had not yet begun to brighten the dark skies. Yet the valley took on a strange light as the misty dome began to glow an eerie pink and green. Underneath this cover of glowing mist an apparition appeared as four somethings solidified into being.

The four bodies were laying on their backs facing upwards at the dark sky. In the east the first dim red light of the rising sun had just started to appear, and a cool breeze blew down from the mountains. The soft clover grass that the four of them lay in smelled from the dew that had accumulated in the moist predawn, and the gentle hum of insects darting from flower to flower was the only sound. None of the humanoids lying on the ground stirred, though the sound of their breathing began to become stronger. They were grouped in pairs, the taller males lay next to each other, while the smaller male and the female lie a few meters away, their hands lightly touching in an affectionate grip. The taller of the two males began to snore and cough, his eyelids flicked back and forth. The other, next to him seemed to be stretching the muscles of his arms as his mouth opened in a yawn.  
In the distance birds began to chip, and from a nearby pond the croaking of the bullfrogs drifted over on the breeze. The new day slowly dawned, the blackness of the sky gave way to a dark blue as the dwarf star approached the horizon. The glowing mist began to clear, and it became possible to see beyond the valley where they lay. One by one their eyes opened and their became aware of themselves and each other.  
Atom was the first to become conscious. He quickly blinked his eyes and rotated his head to confirm the fact that he was not lying on the cold icy rock of the rouge comet, but rather in a much more comfortable location. He pulled a handful of clover grass and brought his fist to his face to smell it. He looked down at his body. He was wearing a pair of soft, slightly faded jeans and a plain white cotton tee shirt. On his feet were a pair of long cotton socks covered by a pair of faded red leather boots. Atom pulled up his shirt to look at his chest, and was surprised. The first thing that caught his eyes was his navel. He stuck a finger in it to feel it, to make sure it was real. His skin gave way easily to his touch, unlike the artificial, metallic covering his body used to have. The most obvious thing was the absence of the panel door. “I'm not a robot anymore?” he muttered aloud. Upon hearing his voice he received his second surprise. He now spoke in a pitch at least one octave lower than he remembered. 

Atom turned his head to see Kobaruto stirring to life. His brother still had the two sharp cowlicks of hair sticking up above his head, and Atom quickly ran his fingers though his own hair to find that his own famous hair spikes were still present, at least in the form of long unruly tufts sticking out at the same angle as his star like spikes had once done. Cobalt was also dressed in a similar garb, but with dark blue boots, also somewhat worn. As his brother also self examined his own body, Atom laughed at him. “Yes bro, we are both flesh and blood now.” he said. “Don't ask me how, I don't know where we are, or how we got here either.”

A sudden loud cry broke the stillness, reverberating off the mountains behind them. It was a familiar voice, though an octave lower in pitch than they had remembered. 

“Looks like Titan is also here and has awakened.” Cobalt said. “I wonder if Uran is close by.”

The sound of her familiar voice answered Kobaruto's question. Atom and his brother walked the few paces that separated them from their siblings. “Are we...” Titan started to ask.

“Yes, we all are.” Atom replied. “It might appear that the Buddha was correct all along. We are reincarnated eventually after death, even robots.”

“But we appear to be human now.” Uran said.

“Isn't that what we always wanted?” Atom smiled.

“I know it's what you always wanted.” Uran answered. “I guess deep down so did I, though I never thought about that consciously.”

Titan stuck his hand into his pants to confirm his suspicions. “I think I'm anatomically correct now.” he laughed looking at Uran with some lust in his eyes. Uran turned around and tested herself with her finger tips. She turned to face Chitan, a deep red blush on her face. “Oh my!” she laughed. The two of them suddenly locked lips as Atom and Kobaruto face palmed.

The sky brightened as the sun rose above the horizon. Cobalt shaded his eyes with his left hand and watched the orb as it cleared the rim of the world. Uran looked around and pointed toward the lower part of the valley. “If we follow that stream it seems to lead toward a clearing, maybe a settlement.”

“Did you hear that?” Titan asked. 

“Yes I think I did.” Atom said. Cobalt nodded as well.

“You mean that kind voice we heard in our heads?” Uran asked.

“Yes,” Titan agreed. “I guess I didn't actually hear it, I sorta felt it. It was a suggestion in my mind that we go that way.” he pointed in the direction that Uran had previously indicated.

**As** they walked the sun rose higher in the sky. Despite having cleared the dense atmosphere the stars light remained a reddish color, unlike the way the sun appeared on Earth. Cobalt noted the fact, but he didn't comment on it. As they walked downhill they could see the outline of the village below them. Off in the distance, the sound of cows mooing, ducks quacking, and chickens clucking wafted towards their ears.  
“Sounds like a farm in the distance.” Atom noted.

Uran looked up and pointed. Some distance away, the top of a tower could be seen, rising taller as they approached it.  
“It looks like part of a tall building, like a castle.” She said. “I wonder who lives there?”

They soon found themselves on a cobble stone road. Behind them, the pavement seemed to disappear towards the horizon as it lead away from the lower valley. In front of them, the road clearly lead into the village they were approaching. They passed though a gate in a a tall stone wall at the boarder of the town. Ahead of them came the sound of a clock striking 8 times.

“8 O'clock in the morning.” Uran said. “We're just in time for breakfast.”


End file.
